marching home, but the sounds have unsettled us all again, and in the
tumult of one's emotions one does not know what to believe and what to
fear. Everything seems a little impossible and absurd, especially what
I am now writing from hour to hour.




VIII

SOME INCIDENTS AND THE ONE MAN


12th June, 1900.

* * * * *

Even the British Legation--"the stoical, sceptical, ill-informed
British Legation," as S---- of the American Legation calls it--is
wringing its hands with annoyance, and were it Italian, and therefore
dramatically articulate, its curses and _maladette_ would ascend to
the very heavens in a menacing cloud like our Peking dust. For on
England we have all been waiting because of an ancient prestige; and
England, everyone says, is mainly responsible for our present plight.
Everybody is lowering at England and the British Legation along
Legation Street, because S---- was not sent for two weeks ago, and the
language of the minor missions, who could not possibly expect to
receive protecting guards unless they swam all the way from Europe, is
sulphurous. They ask with much reason why we do not lead events
instead of being lead by them; why are we so foolish, so confident.